Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, June 29) — Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri on Thursday denied the alleged “tampering” of the bill creating the controversial Maharlika Investment Fund (MIF).
“There’s no such thing as tampering. There was never a plan to tamper. There was no sinister move to tamper the measure. There was no tampering that took place,” said Zubiri in a media briefing.
\”We just reflected the true intention of the provisions as reflected on the transcript of records,\” he added. \”The enrolled bill, yung pinirmahan ko sa Washington, D.C. (the one I signed at Washington, D.C.), is the truthful reflection of the intent of the members of Congress. Ayan yung intent ng (That’s the intent of the) majority when we approved this.\”
Zubiri made the statement after Senate Minority Leader Koko Pimentel alleged that the enrolled bill, which is expected to be transmitted to Malacañang next week, was not the version approved by the Congress.
This was after Senator Mark Villar, the principal author of the bill, penned a letter of correction noting that the provisions on prescription period should be under a single section.
The correction was later discussed by the Senate’s majority bloc through Viber before Zubiri signed the enrolled bill on June 21.
The Senate president explained that corrections were made due to an \”honest oversight\” of the Senate staff.
However, Pimentel said the corrections should have been made at the bicameral conference.
\”Bicam should have been the last opportunity to change the bill because the purpose of the bicam is to harmonize conflicting versions of bills on the same subject matter,\” said Pimentel in a statement in response to Zubiri’s explanation.
\”Since no bicam, there was therefore no opportunity to amend or change the wording of the Senate version as approved by the Senate plenary on third and final reading.\”
To recall, the House of Representatives adopted the Senate version of the MIF.
For his part, Zubiri maintained that what matters is there is no intent to change any provisions of the measure.
